A test of the national ‘Emergency Alert System’ which was seen by television viewers this morning in states across the country prompted panic and confusion, with many taking to Twitter to express their concerns.

The test began at around 11am EST and was broadcast in Washington DC, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jersey, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia. The emergency alert contained no details and merely listed the states it affected and said the alert would run from 11am until 12 midnight.

Viewers in Sacramento, CA also reported seeing the test, which lasted for about 10 minutes before the regular TV broadcast resumed. At no point were viewers advised that the alert was only a test.

Footage out of Fort Lauderdale, Florida shot earlier this week shows military and law enforcement practicing the internment of citizens during martial-law style training. The exercise was accompanied by very little media coverage. A Sun-Sentinel report said that Broward County police would be “assisting members of the U.S. Special Operations Forces who are undergoing urban warfare training.”

A blazing sinkhole in northwest China terrified locals, attracting tourists as well as researchers and prompting questions about its origin. The temperature on top of the burning crater was estimated to be 792 degrees Celsius.

Located in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, near Urumqi, in northwest China, the sinkhole is 0.9 meters wide.

It is hot enough to light up branches and other objects placed next to it. Various tourist videos show people setting things on fire.

Locals have dubbed it a “gateway to hell.” Many have told the Chinese media that the ground in the area has been hot for some time now.

There is no volcanic activity in the region, which led scientists from the Xinjiang Meitian Geological Bureau to believe that the sinkhole was created out of coal seam spontaneously combusting.

The area was reportedly used for mining in the 1970s, China Central TV cited a supervisor from Xinjiang Meitian Fire Engineering Bureau, Chen Long, as saying, the Daily Mail reported.

“Primitive mining and extinguishing techniques caused coal to burn deep under the ground,” Chen said. “Operators didn’t seal the mines properly after business discontinued and this leads the underground fire to burn towards the surface of the earth.”

Similar phenomena on a larger scale were spotted in Turkmenistan and America’s Pennsylvania.

The former, referred to as the “the door to hell,” is a gas crater that has been burning in a Turkmen desert for more than 40 years. The one in Pennsylvania is a coal mine fire that has been burning since May 1962.

A series of volcanic plumes have erupted from a dormant volcanic location in Western Nevada — Cold Springs to Middlegate Nevada.

Steam plumes from a volcanic field near Cold Springs, NV.

The plumes were large enough to be mistaken by the National Weather Service as “Strong Cell Storms” !

The NWS was obviously very interested in this event , and apparently knew something seismic was going on AN HOUR BEFORE the plumes erupted.

Almost exactly 1 hour before the plumes erupted, the NWS sent out a powerful RADAR pulse directly over the location in question (Cold Springs to Middlegate, NV).

After a very strange volcanic plume event in Nevada, a few hours later, an earthquake struck Central Eastern California along the Nevada border near Red Mountain, Mammoth Mountain, and Inyo Craters.

This earthquake struck after a period of relative silence in Eastern California, this is the first 3.0M event to strike the area in several weeks time. The actual location of the earthquake is near Aspen Springs, and Whitmore Hot Springs, California.

Ironically, the strange volcanic plume event earlier in the day occurred near Cold Springs, Nevada, and the PREVIOUS plume event in Southern California occurred near Desert Hot Springs, CA.